Calm obedience

Colonel is making progress. On wednesday I put on my music and took him out to do some trotting around. We're working on calmness and a willingness to bend correctly and to stay of the damn rail. He only threw a could of bucks the whole time. He was a pill about moving off my leg and supporting himself with his inside shoulder. When he calms down a little more I'm going to take a crop out there and re-enforce my leg aids. This will probably hype him up further but, what am I going to do?

Star is working on WTC calmly. Not only calmly really but willingly keeping the pace that she should. We need to work on transitions also, but I believe in one thing at a time as much as possible. I also want to start clicker training her over the jumps. I truly believe she's not afraid of the jumps but she has no substantial motivation to go over them. The other thing I need to do is some training re the appropriate response to the use of the crop. Right now she likes to rear, back up or spin. Not OK. I tried just cropping her until she moved forward but she got herself turned towards the fence and did a pretty good rear so I turned her and then she moved forward but again, she'd evaded the aid. I'm not getting a good forward response from the crop so, more work is needed there. I guess I need to just keep hitting her until she goes forward and try to ignore the rearing. If the rearing gets sufficiently bad I'll see if I can do an emergency dismount and beat her into submission from the ground. It sounds bad to say it like that but rearing is dangerous and against the rules she knows it so a good cropping might do her good.

Keno also needs a crop to support my leg but I suspect it wont take much. He just wants to be reminded that he needs to do as he's told and I think that will be that.

groundwork day

I worked three horses today.

I got Tilly out and we talked about how a broken fence board does not mean she is free to gallop around like a lunatic. She wasn't the easiest horse to calm down but, I'm suitably pleased with her.

Colonel was quite good. We worked on transitions between trot and canter. Especially transitions that involve no death trotting or head flipping.

I put long lines on Libby. What a mess. She has a neck like a bull and she knows it. She got away from me and ran off to eat grass and pester Tessa. I put a crupper on the surcingle (I had neglected to do this earlier) and then ran the reins through the bit and back to the surcingle. "Power steering" is what Robert calls it. When Libby discovered that pulling on my hands caused pulling on the underside of her tail, she was pissed. Eventually though I had her minding her P's and Q's like a lady.

Rode Colonel

I rode Colonel yesterday at Roberts request. There is someone who might lease him. I gave him a good lunge going mostly to the right. Lots of transitions and cantering until he quit acting like an idiot. It actually went really well. Then the time came to hop on him. I have to say I felt sick. This was faster than I had planned on starting him but I needed to know how he'd be to canter. I can't say he wasn't a jerk, but I also can't say it was especially terrifying. Scary, yes, but terrifying, no. I only cantered him under saddle to the left. It was like riding one of those pennies that you set rolling down those funnel shaped plastic things at the mall. Kept falling further and further in, round and round we went. He was leaning so badly that I couldn't stay in the center of the saddle and still stay straight up and down. I thought I must have rolled the saddle putting too much weight in one stirrup. Nope, he and the saddle were still perfectly in line, just happened to be most of the way sideways. I'm actually pretty pleased with how upright I managed to stay, not that pleased with my inability to feel where the horse is relative to the saddle but hey, it scared me into keeping off the stirrups like a good girl. Not that those stirrups were of much help anyway. I left them quite long.

In the end, he really only threw one buck, and basically didn't flip his head or do that weird cock your head to the side and stick it up in the air at the same time thing. He did pull but not all that violently. He did try to run us into a wall but didn't quite manage it. He was tense and downhill and a little rough to ride but I always had the sense that we could stop if I wanted to, and he wasn't going anywhere near the kind of speeds I know he's capable of, possibly because we just did circles and he didn't get a chance to go straight down the arena.

He didn't break a sweat.

Star is making progress stretching the right hind leg in the trot. I had a huge fight with her about trotting to the right and she cantered an absurdly tiny circle and refused to break back into the trot. I think it goes without saying that she cantered this circle with her head and tail so high in the air they were practically touching. After I won the fight we did some good work and I'm pleased with her progress so far.

I took Tilly out too. The arena was crowded so I just walked her around and reminded her about where she needs to be relative to my shoulder. It was good practice. The other horses were very distracting/upsetting for her but in the end we reached an understanding.

Lame-o trots

Worked Star and Papillon today. Star's trot is terrible. I knew that already, I suppose, but watching from the ground really gave me new insight. Her right hind is so weak its amazing. I try to ask her and bend and use it more and she looks almost lame. I'm going to continue the lunge work to focus on that leg, and continue lots of walking to build the muscle. I've been just getting on her with just her halter (and Alyssa's reins clipped to the bottom of it) after I finish the lunge work and we walk around while I listen to music. This is Star's kind of work out. Minus the trotting on the lunge of course.

I walked Papillon in-hand for 20 minutes and did another 30+ minutes of walking. She wasn't really sound to trot. I'm not that worried about it. This is only the second week of having her out and she'll get stronger.

I need to get Lady and Colonel into the mix somehow. Too bad I cant pony Lady off of Papillon or visa versa.

Banishing the blahs

Ok, I'm starting to feel pretty good about how things are going. I'm still sore from riding a few to many horses. Funny how we'll take care to keep the horses from getting too sore but ourselves, meh. Anyway, Star is slowly slowly starting to straighten out at the trot. She is one crooked horse. Even her fat distribution is crooked. Papillon is getting stronger I think, but I'm taking it slow with lots of hand walking before riding. Colonel and Lady still need more attention. Lady is ready to start her strength training too. Lots and lots of walking. Probably warm her up with handwalking also. It really helps when they start feeling good and therefore start feeling like trotting, if I'm on the ground I can put a swift stop to it without causing any trouble with their mouth.

Groundwork, fitness and a case of the blahs

I think I want to go back to posting regularly on this blog. I need something to help me track my progress.
As the title implies, I'm on kind of a groudwork kick right now. I'm following the instructions in the book "Horse training in hand: A modern guide to training in hand." I want all my horses to be reaching under themselves and really lifting their backs with their inside hind leg when we're on a circle. Eventually I'm going to be working everyone on their lateral work too. I'm trying to be very patient and not skip any steps. Right now Lady, Colonel, and Star are working on their proper walk.

I walk beside them by their shoulder with a dressage whip and my leading hand extended. If they aren't bending right I put my driving hand on their neck or shoulder and vibrate the line to invite their head in. All three horses are wanting to swing their hips out instead of bending. I'm trying to be persistent and not let up with the pressure on their neck/shoulder until they bend for me and then I release the pressure. Eventually I need to be able to just vibrate the line and point at their shoulder and they need to respond by bending nicely.

The idea is that then when we go to our lunge line work, I can signal them to do the right thing without having to shrink my circle again. Furthermore, if they get the idea at the walk, I can use the same signal for the trot and eventually the canter.

Lady also needs a little help extending her inside hind. This is simpler to accomplish. I just have to give that leg a little tap just as the outside fore is about to lift off the ground. Sometimes Lady prefers to trot rather than extend, but she's getting over it.

Papillon apparently already walks like I want her to, so she'll be moving on to lunge work. Papillon will need conditioning as much as anything else.

After the lunge work is done with Colonel and Star, they'll be lunged in side reins. At first very loose and gradually shorter as they gain their balance back at each new length. I'm feeling impatient to get to this step, but I'm committed to doing this right and building the neccessary muscles before moving to the next step.

In theory all these ground work exercises can be used just to warm up before a ride. I have been feeling very blah about riding lately. I'm waiting for that to pass but if it doesn't pass soon I'll have to force the issue.

Only managed to get around to riding today by 1 pm. No shock there I
guess, but I really should try to find a way to get to the barn
earlier in the day.

Anyway, I finished warming up star right at the stroke of 1, which is
perfect for my new mission. (Nobody roll their eyes now.) I need to
stop riding for such short periods of time, so I'm trying to keep
track of how long I've actually been riding, rather than how long it
feels like. So I'm implementing kindof a parelli thing (again people,
no eye rolling) where we start our post warm-up with incrementally
more amd more continuous trotting. We're working up to 30 minutes in
five minute intervals. Turns out my attention span is about ten
minutes, so today we did fifteen. In theory you go straight from your
trot to whatever your real work is that day. Transitions, cantering,
circles, patterns, lead changes, whatever. I'm not totally clear on
the specifics.

So for us today we did our fifteen minutes one way, then we just did
fifteen minutes the other way and then quit. I vow to go longer in the
future, but I'm pleading sleep deprivation on this one. There was,
however, a little twist on all this trotting. We did all of it in the
field on the west side of the indoor arena. Turns out, that field has
a non-negligible slope to it. Definitely enough to be beneficial to
muscle development. It took quite a while to convince star that we
werent planning on doing the jumps in the field there. She did
eventually calm down and switch over to the project of trying to
convince me that a nice lazy pony ride was the way to go.

Still, I think I managed to get some good work out of her. Especially
when we were headed up the slope.

I hand walked Papillon around the field. Sleepwalked is more like it.
She loosened up by the end but I didnt ride her.

I took Libby out to lunge and she tried once to change directions and
she pulled more than I like and rushed more than I like but mostly she
was fine. After a short lunge we worked on mounting block standing. We
walked around the block and sniffed the block, and then came the
exciting part. I started scratching her whither and then stepped up to
the first step, then the second. She was too engrossed in expressing
her enjoyment of the scratching to notice. I stepped off and stopped
the scratching. I stepped back up and she shied away, but I reached
out to scratch her anyway. Stepped down, moved mounting block, she stood there suspicious but anticipating her scratchies.

I went to put the mounting block away and I stood on it one last time so she could look at me, but she walked over and presented her whithers for scratching. Score. I knew I was going to like training an itchy horse.

Brrrr

Tuesday it was cold, very cold, but I pressed on. I took Libby out, because I could take her out with my coat still on. :) She was hot but reasonable for walk and trot. I decided to ask for some canter, which she dropped after less than a minute. I didn't have a lunge whip on me, and in the process of chasing her around like an idiot trying to get her to pick up the canter she pulled me over and I scraped my knee. It was a nice little reminder that I was being an idiot and should stop. So I stopped. Libby looked pleased with herself, or was it my imagination? Anyway, she was less pleased when I got the lunge whip out, and we did a little canter. She really doesn't know how to canter on a lunge line very well. Kinda sad really.

Speaking of cantering poorly. I took Star out after Libby, and continued to fight my impulse to declare us "done for the day" after only ten or fifteen minutes. We practiced cantering Star's bad direction. In the northwest corner of the arena she consistently decided to stop and rear rather than take the turn. Eventually I got her to stop doing that by make sure we did a big easy turn there. The little rat picked up on my habit of quitting after overcoming something like that and wanted to stop on the long stretch. So we kept going until I couldn't stand it anymore. This didn't take long, but instead of stopping and walking, we trotted. This was displeasing to her but she did it. I found I can catch my breath just fine sitting the trot. Particularly since her trot was a little lethargic after cantering around. So we cantered and then trotted and then cantered again several times.

There were traces of sweat on her neck and obvious sweat around her ears and under the saddle pad when we quit. I'm trying to make a point of quitting only when she's actually sweating, so I succeeded in that, at least. I think that maybe I need to get Alyssa to lunge us at the canter to help her get used to actually cantering on turns and help me get used to compensating for her leaning into the turns. We might also spend some time just working on canter transitions off of a kiss. I need some split reins with a knot, so I can whack her with them without hitting her with a buckle.

I hand walked Papillon for ten minutes and then later on I rode her. She was quite stiff. I never really got a good trot out of her. When she was engaging her hindquarters properly her walk smoothed out, but that was it. Worrisome.

Colonel is looking less lame now, and slightly less skinny. The farrier dug out an abscess in his right rear hoof and he's walking on it now. Still wont stand on it, but thats OK. His weight is getting better thanks to lots of sweet feed. When I fed him he dug through his regular grain to get to the sugary stuff. Picky little goof ball. Star is going to get me a better seat and improve my endurance so by the time Colonel is back on all four feet I'm going to kick his butt on a regular basis until he behaves himself like a good citizen. Thats the plan, anyway.

Prequel

Whoops. I got leapfroged. No matter. Tuesday:

I was feeling quite silly so instead of longlining colonel with a bit I decided to get out a longeing caversson and use the rings on it instead. Turns out those things are complicated. Colonel stood more or less patiently while I tried to figure out what goes where. There was some kind of throatlatch thing that was either too small for colonel or else I just couldn't figure it out. So I took it off. Anyway, longlined as usual and it was the same with the bit as without. Which is nice to know, thus maybe justifying my ridiculousness? Meh, Robert didn't catch us, so he didn't have an opportunity to react, and thats what matters.

Much later I got around to tacking up Star. I set up a really pretty little crossrail with ground poles on each side. She was a little worked up having Niki in the arena, she was a little worked up about the jump, but she eventually calmed down to what I considered to be suitible levels. Then we worked on the jump.

I have this fear that she will forever and ever stop and look at a jump before she goes over. I have some reasons to fear this. She still has to look at the bridge when we go over it for the first time that day. Lord knows I cant quite get her to the hay barn most days without her stoping or at least slowing down.

The short version (which I may update later, but probably not) is that I kept turning her around when she stopped instead of letting her think and then go over it. I did this under saddle and on the ground. The times she went over it under saddle, I let her think about it instead of turning around. On the ground, only after Alyssa came in and reminded me what we learned with nicki, did I let her stop and think about it and ask her to go over, and pop, over she goes. So, I learned my lesson. Star learned nothing or maybe worse. Hopefully just nothing.

Late start but productive

I had a late night and couldn't drag myself out of bed in a timely fashion, so I arrived at the barn around 11. Robert was fixing stuff today so we sat and chatted for about half an hour. He told me to do horse stuff. Poor Brandon had gotten there at ten and managed to sweep and cut some weeds down, but was having problems with allergies and his chest started hurting, so Robert sent him home before I even got there.

So I dutifully went onto horse stuff. Grabbed Keno and tried putting my dressage saddle on him (still too tight in the shoulders, I'll have to find something to pad it up with). We went out in the field with him being way more snorty than usual, and something by the Morgan pasture made him spin and bolt and dance. I am not so much with the confidence so I hopped off and made him work on the ground (mini lunge circle, leading, etc) until he was not so jiggy and high-headed. Then hopped back on and walked home. We worked in the outside dressage arena until he was willing to give me his head. There was a lot of unauthorized trotting and bucking. He was basically a jerk and it was highly frustrating. I took his bridle off and put him in the crossties and then went to go see kittens. Alef and Dalet were in the forklift seat as usual. Mamacat emerged from behind the hay and let me pet her! She hasn't let us do that for months, since Robert nearly caught her in the live trap. I did catch a glimpse of a small kitten.

Finished untacking Keno, rinsed and put him back, ate lunch. I dragged out two poles and two small standards. One pole went between the standards, and the other one was perpendicular to the first pole, but by a standard. I grabbed Niki.

Niki did *not* want to walk at first, which makes some kind of sense because she's a hot little mare and it was a cool day. So we did a lot of long-trotting and I experimented with how much I could slow down her trot by slowing down my posting, which wasn't inconsiderable. We cantered (mostly on her own initiative) to the left the whole way around the arena, without popping out her shoulder and dragging me towards the gate. I gave her some slight directions and she took them, loose rein and fairly comfy canter. It was awesome! I tried trotting her over the pole against only one standard and she was unhappy about the idea, so we walked over it a couple times and then she trotted the other one, both directions, no problem. Ears perked, no rushing, definitely looking down at it. I tried cantering right lead and we had more problems than left, but we did get it eventually. Her "whoa" is getting worse, so I need to spend some time on that. We did some of the mugwump stuff, where as soon as she moves we go back to work, and I think she started to get the idea.

Star was one I had been plotting about the last couple days after watching the jumping session, and the reason why I actually pulled out the poles and standards. She didn't want to get caught but I guess that's not strictly unusual. She wanted to hesitate at the hay barn but didn't, so that was nice (no whip), and I am either less gentle about saddle pads and saddling than Gillian is, or I'm just not authorized to tack her up, because there was a lot of flinching. Mounted in the arena, and she didn't walk off immediately. It took a couple seconds, so that was an improvement from the last time I rode her. Gillian's saddle is hellish. I'm surprised I don't have bruises on my thighs today, actually. Star's a much bigger mover than any of my horses- they're all very smooth and flat-moving, so that took a lot of adjustment, and I didn't want to post off my thighs because oh god the pain. But we worked it out. She tried squirreling out over the first ground pole and I didn't let her, so she resigned herself to trotting over it, and then trotted over the one between the standards with little hesitation. We cantered- I like her canter!- and she went over the poles fairly willingly, even after she stumbled over one. The first time she broke to a trot but she kept her forward, and she kept her rhythm steady after that (other than when she knocked it). I was listening to my iPod and a slowish song came on but she matched her canter to that, it was very well done on her part.

Untacked her and put her back as Colleen was taking Rocky out. Rocky was very clearly sore on at least one of his hooves. Nothing in his feet, no heat in his legs, but he was standing very uncomfortably and his face showed a lot of pain. Robert and I immediately went to "founder." But he was willing to trot. We hosed off his feet and he seemed to do better on that. Right now he's getting a flake of hay and downgraded to a handful of grain. I don't know how he's doing today.

I was feeding and Robert was hosing off Rocky when Bella and Jessi came in. Jessi was really upset at Bella and I asked what happened- I think Bella bucked her off, Jessi was definitely not walking right. She was untacking Bella and I offered to hop on, since putting her back was not an option she wanted to take. Jessi made noises and Robert interjected to say that yeah, someone needed to put the fear of god in her. I grabbed my helmet and handed my cell phone to Jessi.

Bella was deeply offended by me smacking her to have her keep up with me on the leadline, and hyper sensitive. She was *mad*. I swung up and she almost immediately started trotting away. Bella was trying to duck out towards the gate by popping her shoulder and bulling her way over, shaking her head, etc. Her saddle sucks for me because I can never get a solid seat in that big of a saddle, and it hurts my seatbones. But I was not coming off that mare. In about ten minutes I had her saying "yes ma'am" and working off my seat, legs, and opening reins. We cantered both directions, which she was absolutely shocked by, but didn't have any bucks. I got bored of randomly changing directions at the trot and stopped letting her have the rail because that made life too easy. The ground poles were still out so we trotted through one each direction. Bella did not want any part of this. I felt her trying to evade but I closed my legs and she didn't even dramatically change her rhythm. According to Colleen, though, her legs were crossing over every which way to try and run out. We got some pretty good trot-halt-trot transitions too. After about twenty minutes or half an hour she was soaked in sweat (I wasn't far behind) and had some of the fire taken out of her.

I talked to Jessi briefly about having Gillian and/or me put some training rides on her, because Bella is a nice enough horse, she just needs some whoopass, especially as green as she is. Jessi's not a bad rider but she hasn't been riding for very long. I've got way more stick, determination, and knowledge at this point (though she has more balls, I wouldn't have the guts to ride in her shoes). Robert mentioned it, apparently, so I'll talk to him on Saturday about it. I'm not riding for free directly for her, because that makes me have divided loyalties and time. I won't ride for pay directly for her either because I want to keep my ammy status! So Robert and I will have to work out an appropriate fee for him to ask. It'll probably be something like ten or fifteen bucks per ride, and I think 2x a week would be plenty.

Jack was out today with Colleen because Charlie was sick. First Rocky came up lame, and then everyone just had to come watch me work Bella, so it was 4:30 by the time I dismounted. Jack wanted to sit on a horse so Robert pulled out Keno, then suggested I put a bridle on him, then suggested I take Jack for a ride instead of just having a pony ride. Keno was good! He stood like a champ and wasn't too unhappy that we weren't letting him eat his hay. He did his little WP horse jog and Jack likes it better than Sunny's trot, he says.

We put Keno back and I was heading to the tack room to change when I got called back to look at the new kittens. Robert, predictably, says they're all keepers. (::headdesk::) There are two tuxedos and a "dalmatian kitty" and possibly one more, but I only saw three. I was tired enough to be insistent that we work on catching them, so Robert agreed to put a hardcore press on the kitten excavation project on Saturday. We will see.

Got there at 10, hung out with Robert for a while since it has been a fairly long time since I actually talked to him. I guess I've been in a funk lately? Who knows. Robert had decided to spend the day cleaning up the feed table, so I helped him move it and put some stuff away.

Suited myself up in riding gear. My iPod was dead, and usually the the only way I go out in the field is with said iPod, so I can distract myself from worrying with music. But, after little-blond-pony-inspired boldness, I grabbed my cell phone and a Keno. He was desperately happy to be out until he saw the saddle. We headed out and walked around once on a long rein. He was very unhappy over the hose monster, displeased that things had changed in the neighbor's yard with respect to the well drilling equipment, and could have cared less about the haymonster this time.

After one time around, I gathered my reins and asked for a trot. He gave me a nice one and gave me his head, but around the curves and then on the stretch towards home he got rushy and headflippy and disobedient. I sighed and kept him moving. When we trotted past the culvert he threw his shoulder out a bit, but then gave me a nice trot again. He kept it up on the path towards home the second time, I guess he figured out that going towards home doesn't mean going home.

At this point, he was going nicely, we were on the stretch next to the neighbors' driveway, I thought what the hell and asked for a canter. Not the lead I asked for, but calm and responsive. About halfway down the stretch it was still going well so I asked for a hand gallop. Wheee! He came back down when I asked him to, and got a little jiggy at the very beginning but walked through the curves and down the stretch at a nice forward loose rein walk. Good times.

I also took Niki out. She was pretty hyper but behaved mostly. Bella was grazing right next to the arena (which I hate) and she just gave that mare a bit of a wider berth. She walked over the little crossrail Gillian set up, and then trotted over it on the lunge. Not pretty, but calm! Under saddle she chilled out a lot, eventually. We posted the trot relatively calmly and slow. We were much better with steering for the most part, and when Star bolted right at us, we were unhappy but did not do more than dance to the side a bit (which meant we didn't get hit, I'm okay with this). We did canter! It wasn't pretty, and she ran into it, but there wasn't anything more than some humping her back up.

Less burning, more learning

Just rode the one horse saturday. I rode Papillon bareback while Alyssa rode lady. Papillon was having a bad day arthritis-wise. When she finally got that through her head she was much more willing to work under my direction. Trot only on the long sides, round your back more, nice smooth transitions. Normally Papillon will round up at the walk and canter without my asking as long as I'm sitting basically correctly. At the trot, first I dont always sit quite as correctly as I'd like, and second Papillon is very unforgiving. On a bad day though, I think I will continue to insist that she do the right thing and ease the weight on her front end.
I have perfected the mounting without rolling the bareback pad, and even though the girth on the pad came undone it didn't move an inch while we were riding, it just made Alyssa twitch a little. I really like that bareback pad, its cushy and fuzzy for high friction.

Most of the day was spent grilling Robert on his training ideas. You have to grill him if you want an efficient flow of information. He has a vast warehouse of information at his disposal, but the retrieval can be a little inconsistent. Lucky for me he's "going back to basics" with Reno to re-establish better bending and balance. To do this he's doing something I've been curious about for a while, namely, rollbacks. He's doing them on longlines and manages to keep Reno, stiff as he is, to keep his hind end mostly in place. At this point the rollbacks seem to be mostly turns on the hind end, but that is OK with me if it gets the job done.

I think I'll be pretty successful in getting Robert to teach me how this is done. Then I can practice on Reno and on poor Colonel, bwa ha ha ha ha. Supposedly Colonel knows how to do this. We shall see.

This next part is where I try to hash out what Robert and I are discussing. Its technical (I hope) so feel free to skip it.

Right now Robert is on a big kick about The Wither. I'm taking this to mean more physiologically thoracic vertebrae 1 through 8 or so. We've been talking about the lateral ark of The Wither. I'm going to represent it with ( and ) for pointing left and right respectively. The idea is that if the whither points left ( then the horse will go forward to the right because that is the way that they are bent.

Those of us who ride are painfully aware that a horse can have his neck bent to the right and still quite easily go left by poking out his left shoulder and dropping his right shoulder and away he goes! To my mind this is prevented by having the wither longitudinally balanced straight up and down. Then they cant drop the inside shoulder. I'm not really clear on this part. Maybe its an issue of the wither being more exaggerating of course, due to the limits of the symbols available to me. We all know they can do a leg yield bent smoothly in the opposite direction of travel. They can do a sidepass bent in the same direction of travel. ( I may have this backwards, but, no matter.) Maybe they have their wither straight | and are just bending their neck in front of the wither? I will have to clarify this more on tuesday.

Feel the burn

Another day of horse subduing heat!

Colonel is now officially too skinny to ride. We dont have a saddle that sufficiently clears his withers. Robert says they've got him back on his grain, so hopefully we'll be back to riding soon.

Anyway, I decided not to waste a day of training with him, and I got out the surcingle and crupper. Colonel wasn't exactly thrilled. Out on the long lines we practiced our follow your nose routine. I gave him some pressure on the inside rein, as soon as he stepped with his inside leg, release, when he kept turning after the release, outside rein to straighten him out. After a while he got a bit sour on his turns, but he eventually figured out that if he went straight when I released the pressure then he didn't get any outside rein. We zig-zagged all over the arena like this.

We also practiced driving in squares and triangles. Let me tell you, that is very difficult work. Poor Colonel, every time he started anticipating a particular shape, I switched it on him. His desire to do what he's told is admirable. His inability to wait until he's told what to do is annoying, and frustrating for both of us. I'm thinking that if I can get it into his head that he should follow his nose then he can do that without being asked and everyone will be happy. Right? I can dream, anyway.

Next thing we did was something from a book I have. I took the inside rein out of the surcingle so there was just a straight line between my hand and the bit. My theory is that this better simulates and opening rein. Colonel has a nasty habit of massively over doing his turns if you ask with the leading rein, as I've discussed before. We did more squares and triangles, and then I added a spiral in spiral out exercise. Really it was more like a spiral in, walk straight out exercise. He followed his nose in pretty nicely. He still wanted to circle a little, just out of habit, when I straightened him out, but it wasn't bad.

It could easily be my imagination, but he seemed to be getting it. At least, he seemed to be getting the idea that a short pull means a shallow turn while a longer pull means a sharper turn.

After talking with Robert for a while it was time to get Star out. Basically the plan was to do the same things we did on Saturday.

She was a little more reactive to everything than usual. I attributed this to the fact that today we were working her bad direction. She bolted past the hay monster right off the bat, no stopping and staring. (Improvement? Dunno.) It took two loops around but we got a nice comfy trot going. I was very much enjoying myself.

We picked up our canter a little after passing the hay monster, and quickly sped up to a hand gallop towards the barn. I asked her with my voice to take it easy. She basically ignored me. She gave me two slower strides and then was right back up. I decided this was fine anyway. It was smooth and straight and I felt secure. I felt so secure in fact, that we galloped around the turn and all the way past the culvert. The instant we passed the culvert we went from a hand gallop to a relatively relaxed (but still extended) canter. I decided we may as well keep going up the long/scary side. I decided to avoid the gate so that Star wouldn't fuss about it and break gait. Bad move. She remembered it was there and was somewhat alarmed that I was keeping my distance this time. Give 'em an inch... but actually it was only a brief trot interlude before we were back to cantering, and I brought us back to the fence. She was expecting to stop before the curves so gave her a push to let her know we were going to keep going.

I let her avoid the spot she hates through the first turn. I pushed her through the former mud puddle and into the second turn. We finished the second turn but I decided we'd quit before going past the hay monster. As we both caught our breath I looked down and saw that she had worked up a nice little lather on her neck and around her saddle pad. That didn't stop her from bolting past the hay monster. It didn't matter. We had gone 3/4 of the way around the field. At least. I wasn't feeling especially wiped out. (I would have gone around again if Star had been up to it.) My longtime goal of circumnavigating the field at a canter is within my grasp.

I probably would not have been so bold if I had realized at the time that Star was massively massively in heat. I first noticed the evidence when I was rinsing her off. After her bath I led her out to the pasture and she and Luka were both having conniption fits as she passed by his stall. She did all the classic she-whore stuff on our way out to graze, very scandalous.

Niki pitched a fit so I brought her out too. Later she didn't want to be caught, the little vixen, so I chased her around with a rope. Eventually she decided she didn't want to do that anymore. When I went to get Star, she was no trouble at all. She'd done all the running that day that she stand.

Fun in the sun

Saturday Robert told me to have a fun day after moving all that hay before. In direct defiance of his orders, I went and got Colonel. In his stall he was looking almost too skinny to ride, but I took him out and looked him over in the light, and in more uniform shade, and actually he was looking slightly better than previously, so I forged on. He was calm enough warming up, even with the gigantic wagon the shires were pulling out in the field. We worked on steering. Particularly we worked on keeping his nose and his feet on the same track. It was a massive fail. I'd tip his nose for a 20 m circle and I'd get 8 m from his nose and bigger from his shoulders and even bigger from his hips. Alternatively, I'd try to tip his nose and all I'd get was a braced neck and a shoulder moving on too tight a circle with his hips falling in to the circle.

Whats more, he was really pissed that we were doing all these tight circles. You would think that in defiance of these tight circles he'd, oh I dont know, make bigger ones to make his life easier? Did he do anything to try to make his life easier? No. He just got pissed. He'd start cantering on these little circles so I'd push him on cantering in these little circles which really really pissed him off.

To be honest, when he gets angry it scares me. When he bucks and pulls I become very uncomfortably aware of how much bigger and stronger and stupider he is. I really resent being scared of him. So basically after a while we were both pissed. I was ready to quit for the day, but I couldn't really justify it. I got off him and lunged him.

You should have seen his face when I ran the lunge line through his bit. He was so sure he was done. I lunged him until his coat was slick. I hate to do that to a thin horse, but I couldn't think of anything better to do. When I was feeling less vengeful I got back on him to cool him out. He was doing the same sort of shitty stuff, weaving around when he's supposed to go straight, bracing his neck, or over turning, as I described before. Still, it was a calm walk so after a good go around the arena I brought him back to the barn. He sat in the cross ties for a long time before being put back. I'm pretty sure he learned absolutely nothing from that ride. I, however, did learn from that ride. I learned that I need a more detailed plan than just sitting there being pissed. So, more scheming is in order.

After hanging around in the heat I finally went and got Star. It was time to have fun.

We walked around the field once. Very long negotiations regarding the hay monster in the burn pile. I practiced not taking my legs off her when she's misbehaving. Bad habit. Bad. I was pretty pleased with my progress when she finally bolted past the hay and my legs were wrapped around her just fine.

Next we worked on getting a calm, pleasant trot in the field. Thats not really her strong suit but when I was satisfied then we went for a run. I had sortof forgotten that we hadn't cantered/galloped towards home on the scary side yet. I started with that. It was scary, but in a good way. We were doing a pretty good gallop, the wind felt really good rushing past my face. Star travels very straight and smooth when we're galloping, and I had my legs streched down and wrapped around her nice and tight so I felt secure. Plus, Star cant really go that fast compared to, say, Colonel. When we got down to the tracktor equipment I sat deeper in the saddle and within three strides we were walking again. Thats the thing that makes me feel the safest of all. I can stop Star with my voice, my seat or my reins even when we're galloping towards the barn. No fuss, no nothing. Can I slow her down within a gait? Thats a little trickier, but still.

We cantered up the other side, Star was a little sluggish. We walked through the turns and then galloped most of the way back home. I cooled her out in the arena. She was very subdued in the cross ties, barely raised her head when I took off her bridle.

Bath time was a little less relaxed. She was good for the first side, but she refused to turn around in the wash rack. We spent a long long time arguing about that. I spent an irritating portion of that time getting the whip untangled from her tail, but I basically won the argument and for a little while Star was clean. When I scraped the water off her, it did not resemble mud, very cool.

Star was unimpressed.

After a month haitus...

A lot has happened in the last month. I havent been blogging it. I wish I had now, so I'm picking up again on the blogging. I cant really summarize what's happened so I'll try to summarize where I think I am with the horseys.
Lady:
I was doing really well riding her every time I was at the barn. I dropped the habit after a last minute trip to CA so I want to pick it back up again. Sometimes we really get in sync and its very good.

Star:
Star is rounding her back at the trot! Its really nice. Next up, canter. Her canter in the arena lacks impulsion. Her departures are reluctant. She is always poised to stop if she feels like she's loosing her balance. On the adgenda is to teach her better transitions; that its not acceptable to just stop cantering; and also, that she can keep herself balanced and not feel the need to stop.

Colonel:
Colonel is doing pretty well at remaining calm. He's even doing a little better at calming down after something hypes him up. He is still: leaning on the reins during transitions; throwing his shoulder out around the bend; reluctant to pick up the canter on command; falling in like crazy at the canter. On the adgenda is: teach him a reasonably nice stop, teach him to follow his nose, teach him balance at the canter.

anyone learn anything? maybe?

Saturday I got Colonel out and lunged him. Alyssa was working with Luca and trot poles that later became canter poles. I lunged colonel over those. He got a little hyped up at times, especially the canter poles, but he stayed manageable and I put him back. The thought was that this would bring his mind back into the work zone without me having to get on him while he's all fresh and whatnot.
I got Star out for a brief go. We started out in the arena but Jade was going to be pulling the tire in there and I decided I'd pass on that little experience. We worked in the outdoor arena at Alyssa's suggestion. Star was not going as straight as I wanted so I did some little circles in the same and in the opposite direction we were going. Not sure how much that helped.
Alyssa was curious about "something" and wanted to hop on her. I was interested to hear what Alyssa had to say, but also quite pleased that she was going to finally get on her. Alyssa has been avoiding this. I've only been prodding gently but Alyssa insists that she doesn't like riding Star, and these days she can afford to be picky. :/
It was also gratifying to note that the tiny tiny posting that Alyssa usually does was absent on Star. Confirming what I occasionally try to tell myself, namely, Star moves differently than Keno and Luca and the posting wont necessarily be the same height. Not that it wasn't subtle, just more detectable to the human eye. I was also happy to see that Alyssa revised her opinion of Star at least slightly.

The advice I got was this: long thighs + insufficiently large saddle = seat pushed towards the cantle + leaning forward to compensate for seat= unhappy, high headed horse.

So I'm looking into buying a bigger saddle, but, that all being said, I've been riding Star in this saddle for a long time. I know she can do better with it than she was doing on Saturday. So there's still a discipline component I can work on in the mean time.

Today I technically worked 4.2 horses. The decimal is the small amount of time I spent long lining Spirit. I only got roped into that because I found Niki cast in her stall. She was lying with her hooves facing the wall. There were lots of scratch marks on the wall, which she added to when she saw me peering in and tried to get up. She made an even more vigorous attempt when I opened the door. She settled down in between attempts but she was still panting and you could see the whites of her eyes a little.

Robert was in a lesson with Spirit so I got stuck with Spirit while Robert and Chris went off to free Niki. Spirit was good, especially considering it was his first time long lining. Niki finally managed to push herself away from the wall when she saw that Robert was planning on intervening. I guess I'm just not scary enough to get the job done.

I worked with Star on staying straight in her corners. I worked with me on just experimenting with my position in the saddle. I spent some time neck reining Star and gripping the pommel with my other hand to hold myself in the middle of the saddle. Seeing what it takes to hold the same position without the pommel. I was much more able to get my back straight/ shoulders back when I was right in the middle. This lends even more evidence to support Alyssa's theory that I'm leaning forward to compensate for my seat being too far back. I also fidgeted with my feet a little but I didn't have a whole lot of luck there. Plus Star eventually reached a point where she wasn't interested in putting up with my antics.

On the Star front I think we made some progress. When she cut her corners and counterbent through her corners I spun her pretty hard in the direction opposite the one we were going. When she started anticipating the spin to the outside I just applied my inside bending aids and she was relieved not to have to do the spin and she went nice and straight. We'll have to practice this more at the trot. She'll be a little ball of unholy fury if/when I try to do this at a canter.

We did a little canter around the arena at the end, just for my entertainment. I'm paying for my tendency to let Star walk or stop after we canter. Now she doesn't like the idea of going down to a trot, more importantly, an energetic trot. She feels entitled to a very lazy walk. I think that should be easy to fix though. Maybe not fast, but easy. I'll just make her do it until she gets used to it.

I got Colonel out and we did lots and lots of transitions. Basically I decided we'd do under saddle what I had started on the long lines. His walk to trot transitions got a lot better. When I did my little half halts he picked his head up, rocked a perceptible amount of weight back to his hind end and then went off my leg pretty nicely. His trot to walk and his walk to halt are still basically shit.

He wants to lean on my hands. For the halt my solution to this was to ask for my halt right before a wall. That got some semi-reasonable stops out of him. When they weren't reasonable I made him do a turn on the forehand to get us pointed the right way. When they were good enough he got to just walk forward and turn like a normal horsey. Don't know if that message got to his little walnut-sized brain or not.

For the trot to walk, my idea was that a good transition got some rest at the walk, a crappy one got sent back into a trot. He started getting kindof balky about the trot-walk transition because he wasn't doing it well enough often enough to avoid having to do another up transition after two strides or so. Still pondering options for that one.

I got a good halt out of him without using the rail so I hopped off him and I hope maybe some twinkle of that lesson reached his walnut brain. Hard to tell.

I got Lady out and walked her around some, trotted her around some, mostly walked her around some. Robert has been expressing some interest in riding her again, and he shouldn't have to waste time re-conditioning her so I think I'll try to pitch in with Alyssa to get her going. Plus, Papillon was looking pretty lame. Lady was definitely trotting asymmetrically, but she is by her nature a profoundly asymmetrical horse. She was happy enough so my plan is to see if riding her like this leads to a worse trot because of damage or a better trot because of muscle development capable of correcting the trot.

I watched her all summer of '07 and Ian was jumping her. I rarely saw her trot get especially worse. Usually when it got worse it was from taking her on excessively hard ground, or working her beyond what she's capable of. So we shall see.

I also rode Keno bareback for like, ten minutes and then decided it was too much effort to either hold my calves against his sides without a saddle to boost me up, or to go get a saddle so I put him back. He has a fun little tiny trot. I didn't think he could effectively pick up a canter with it, but he picked it up a lot better with his tiny slow trot than with his faster but less focused trot. I need to strengthen my hold-calves-against-sides-of-too-short-horsey muscles.

I felt really productive on Thursday. Showed up at 10 and swept/turned Lady and Papillon out in the pasture. Colonel absolutely flipped out at that. He was screaming for them, screaming and staring at me, running in and out of his stall, and banging on the door to try and open it. Poor guy hasn't really been eating, but it's showing up in his mental state rather than his physical. Lady and Papillon kicked it up a little bit but mostly stuffed their faces.

Brought them. Tessa's mom was out of town and asked Robert to lunge her, so he asked me to lunge her. She was extremely mistrustful of me haltering her, but she's pretty calm and quiet. Didn't want to walk at first so we did some trotting, and then she relaxed. She knows ropework better than lunging, I think, but I did a little of that with Claire so it worked out just fine. Put her back just in time to help Jerry unharness Imp. Once that was done I grabbed Luca and harnessed him up to go out in the field. We had a nice drive with Robert, he was pretty full of himself but well behaved overall. He is standing so much better, it's unbelievable. Rinsed him off and went to lunch. Robert took a long lunch. I turned out Colonel and Libby while I ate.

So I got dressed and rode Niki. She was, well, pretty terrible at first, but improved by leaps and bounds (occasionally literally, but not the "improving" part). Jessi and Bella and their entourage came in at one point and she was very upset about that. Our circles got much worse. So I pulled her off of the rail, because that's where she's been going crooked, and we did a 10-15m circle at the far end of the arena for a long time. We worked on bending and following her head, and not popping her shoulder out. She actually got pretty good at that, did a brief spook when Bella left, but kept working just fine. I rode her back to the crossties and Jessi asked if I was going out in the field. Um, no. Two green horses, a green rider, and a rider who's nervous about riding in the field is NOT a good combination. Plus I had a lesson with Robert anyways.

We did the trot and canter poles again. He's definitely getting the idea, but still wants to cut in and drop his shoulder. We did 10m canter circles whenever he wanted to do that, and he started getting nice and balanced. He picked up the wrong lead a lot, though. We need to work on bending. Robert was pleased by his progress but I was insanely frustrated (largely from not drinking any water and going straight from Niki to Luca). He made up for it by being cute. I was trying to demonstrate to Robert that while I was holding Luca towards the rail after the canter poles, it was because I was trying to make him go straight, and if I let him go he would drop his shoulder and run towards the gate. Instead, we cantered over the poles, he dropped his shoulder and cut the corner (it was UGLY), and aimed straight for the trot poles and cantered over those. That restored my good humor immediately. He's just a weird guy.

But I still didn't feel accomplished. So I asked Robert to look out for just one of us coming back, and rode Luca out in the field. We just walked around one circuit, but he was really good. We crossed the bridge across the creek, which I was a little nervous about (do not want to get dunked in beaver water), even though he's done it a billion times. Halfway across his head came up and he did a plant-all-four-feet spook. Wonderful! I saw the deer bounding away from us. I thought that was a pretty fair call on his part, especially as he moved on calmly. He also did a little sidesteppy trotty thing when something moved in the bushes next to us, but again, fair call. We did the water crossing too, and once I reminded him he wasn't supposed to trot up it he was fine.

I rode Keno with a saddle. That was mediocre. He gets weird cantering in the arena. He's much better in the little dressage one outside. He was busy eyeing Sunny and sticking his head up in the air as much as his short little neck will allow. We got a nice trot though, once we went over the trot poles. I guess I should hop on him more often and give him a real work.

Four horses worked, one of them twice, and four horses turned out. Woohoo!

Rode Luca again. He was an absolute jerk to lunge- taking off, bucking, tried pulling the lunge out of my hands once. We did a bunch of transitions up and down and suddenly he remembered his job. He was a fun ride. We set up three poles at E and B, first at trotting length, then lengthened one set to canter strides. I'm not convinced we got the striding right, at all, but he was definitely balancing himself better. We did some 10m canter circles (because he wouldn't bend otherwise) and oh, oh, we stayed cantering through them, and I didn't need to balance like a barrel racer to stay straight on the horse! It was lovely.

Robert has been redoing all the doors to runs in the hay barn so they're on the inside of the barn, rather than the outside. We reached another crucial step in the "girls and powertools" stage when he told me to use the drill to disassemble an outer door he'd taken down. And went over and showed me the bit I would need to use, where the charged battery was, and how to take the battery out of the drill (which I failed at- need less fingernail, more finger strength), which were all critical parts of the process, it turns out, and things I didn't know. He also showed me how to change the bit, which, whatevs, that's fine. And then he left to go teach a lesson! I ran in briefly to have him open the drill to take the battery out, but that was that- I took the door apart and stacked the wood and we didn't have another conversation about it. It was fantastic.

Less fantastic was not doing anything the rest of the day. Chuck is trying to sell Niki, and wanted to know how she was doing/when I'd be around so he could take pictures of me riding her. And I mean, I don't want to buy her, but I really do like riding her, and she's the first horse I've really had control over her training-- I didn't start her from the ground up, but I've done *everything* with her after longlining in the riding process. And I think I figured I'd have more time with her. I could have had a lot more done with her if I hadn't been so lazy, so it's not like it wasn't my fault, but it's still a little upsetting. Robert and Chuck keep telling me that once Niki is sold, Jewel (his new horse) will get brought down here and I can ride her all I want. Jewel is apparently a real nice quarter horse, trained for cutting but not good enough to be in the money, and I guess can do a decent reining pattern. Which makes me immediately think of mugwump, of course. It'll be fun, but I like taking a green horse and showing them something, and having them realize what you want and be happy to do it. Niki and Will were both a lot of fun that way.

I guess one of these days I'll buy a horse, and then regret not being able to hand it back to an owner when I don't want to deal with it anymore. Bleh. At least Keno is somewhat desperate for attention, whickering wildly whenever I walk by. It's a little pathetic.

Saturday went much better than Thursday did, though it was pretty unhorsey. I came in just as Rose, Julie, and Buzz were leaving. Ate lunch and hopped on Keno bareback. As usual, I wasn't planning on working him very hard, but we got into a groove with our figure eight canters. He was doing much better about trotting through the middle. He's a tad reluctant to pick up his right lead, but that's because he gets excited and high headed about it and doesn't want to drop left lead first. We did get a nice transition, right lead, one trot step, left lead.

Next I worked on fences for a long time. I hate fences. If I had more upper body strength I think I wouldn't hate them nearly as much. But I got Niki and Star's fence up, and Bella and Tillie's fence too. I tried fixing Lady and Papillon's run but settled for mediocrity.

Instead of working Luca, Robert and I unloaded approximately 80 bales of hay from the yellow truck and his truck. Buzz had baled them yesterday, and it was scheduled to rain, so Robert loaded them all up in the trucks and drove them indoors. I was on the truck and Robert was stacking them. He looked appropriately mortified when I teased him about sending the girl scared of heights up on the truck, until I told him it was just a ladder thing.

Hm. Short day, most of it spent feeling terrible.

Got there at 11, swept, helped untack Imp. Libby had wrecked her hotwire while I was sweeping (and was pretty distraught about it all), so I turned off the fence and redid her section. Hopefully it'll stay up a little longer.

Spent a long time with Luca. Robert had us do basically a figure eight like an 8, with standards to denote what to turn around and cones to get us cleanly through X. We started at a walk, then did a trot, then cantered one side, then cantered both with a trot through X, then picked up the next lead. Luca was a big fan of this, actually. He started pulling some pretty tight turns and getting much more balanced. He also figured out the trot-at-X thing. He'd feel pretty strong heading towards the gate at a canter, but come right back exactly at X.

Uh, started riding Niki. She was pretty good. We chased the black feral cat out of the arena and she seemed interested in that. We did walking serpentines. After a while she stopped to stare at Buzz hooking up the tractor to his truck and I realized that, while I've never passed out, what I was feeling was pretty much what I imagined it would feel like. So we walked over to the gate, chased the cat the other way (she loved that, actually), and I hopped off and sat down for a bit. Then walked her back, put her back, and went to the house to inform Robert that I was going home.